Thursday September 13, 2012

One of the more promising cloud applications available today is
data storage. It
represents a real revenue opportunity and will see explosive growth
over the next five years. By the end of 2012, there will be over 500
million cloud storage customers across the globe. That's
spurring "companies of all sizes and descriptions to enter the
market," according to an IHS iSuppli report.

IHS iSuppli forecasts that cloud storage service
subscriptions will grow from less than 300 million in 2011 to reach
500 million this year and jump again in 2013 to 625 million.
Double-digit growth will continue uninterrupted until at least
2017, when the market research firm forecasts cloud service storage
subscriptions will hit 1.3 billion.

Explosive growth is leading a wide variety of companies to enter
and ramp up their cloud service storage efforts. The growing list
spans enterprise managed
service providers (including telcos), giant e-commerce
businesses such as Amazon, and leading platform and digital network
ecosystem providers such as Apple, Google and Microsoft on through
to "independent and pure-play cloud storage providers like Dropbox,
Barracuda, Carbonite, SugarSync, Synplicity, Funanbol and Mozy,"
IHS iSuppli notes.

"Amazon's Cloud Drive, for instance, lets users buy commercial
content like music, movies and ebooks, which can then be stored and
played on multiple devices that they own. Similarly, Google has
introduced its own cloud music service for consumers to upload
personal music, to which they can listen anywhere. Apple likewise
allows users to purchase, store and access content via its iCloud
offering," IHS iSuppli analysts state in a press release.

Providing customers with tools to easily organize and access the
fast-expanding variety and fast-growing quantity of digital content
they're storing is now a critical feature for cloud storage service
providers. So is assuring customers that the content they store is
safe and secure.

Service providers, including wireless and wireline carriers
stand to benefit from this growing trend, as they are "…uniquely
positioned to provide such a digital vault-or trusted hub-for
digital media assets." Benefits for service providers include
adding new revenue streams, as well as increasing the "stickiness"
of their offering, increasing loyalty and reducing customer
churn.

It's also critical that service providers brand their cloud
storage services. Not doing so would "be to promote and build
someone else's business, passing up the chance to retain customer
loyalty," IHS says.

CHR Solutions stands ready to assist our clients in evaluating
this cloud business opportunity, as well as providing the
infrastructure necessary to capitalize on its explosive growth.

Click the button
below to learn how CHR helped Kalona Cooperative Telephone
Company successfully add new revenue streams in less than 30
days.